Bagdasarian, Adam. Forgotten fire, a novel.

Dell, Laurel-Leaf. 272p. c2000. 0-44022914-0. 5.99. JS *

This YA novel is a National Book Award Finalist and was chosen by the ALA as a Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults. To quote from the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, September 2000:

Forgotten Fire is based on the true story of the author's great-uncle, who survived the Armenian genocide in Turkey during WW I, when he was an adolescent. It is told in the first person, the narrator being a 12-year-old named Vahan at the beginning of the story. At this time, Vahan was a member of a large, prosperous family and his father was one of the most important men in their city of Bitlis, in the eastern part of Turkey, far from Istanbul, the capital city. The family was well educated, westernized, and privileged. All that changed when Turkish leaders decided to rid their country of Armenians.

First, Vahan's father is taken away and shot. Then soldiers come to the house, terrorize the family, and end up by shooting Vahan's older brothers in front of all the family, who then have to dig graves and bury them in the garden at the back of the house. When Vahan, his next oldest brother, his sisters and mother are detained in a crowded, horrible place, one sister poisons herself rather than face being raped by the soldiers. On a forced march, the mother urges the boys to escape and try to stay alive somehow in the countryside. The brother is dead of illness within 10 days, so Vahan survives alone, begging, pretending to be Turkish, doing anything to live. This is the story of three dreadful years of his life, until the end of the war, and his journey to Istanbul where he is taken in as a sheltered orphan.

This will be an important book for anyone with an Armenian heritage. As a survival story alone, it will appeal to a wider group of YA readers.